


What Are Friends For?

by quietrook



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Dissociation, Gen, jeremy is nice and jean is confused, vague description of self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 07:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12979287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietrook/pseuds/quietrook
Summary: Jeremy helps take care of a minor injury.





	What Are Friends For?

**Author's Note:**

> this was done as part of the aftgexchange winter edition on tumblr! Gift for someone. This is also the first posted thing I have ever written for this series and I hope it's okay!

Jean had met Jeremy Knox before he joined the Trojans, once. Well - to be fair, a few times more than once. 

There had been all the banquets over a couple of years, but Jean didn’t really  _ count  _ those. Those were nights spent sitting in complete uniform with every other Raven from Edgar Allen. Those were nights, spent in almost complete silence because you never knew if what you said was acceptable, and if you  _ did  _ speak it was short, to the point, and polite as hell. 

There had also been so many games they had played against the Trojans, but those  _ definitely  _ did not count. Jean did not count seeing Jeremy from across the playing field, amongst other players in red and gold, especially during a match; there was too much else to focus on that he couldn’t afford to pay attention to specific people other than how they played into the Raven strategies. 

No; none of those really  _ counted. _ The time Jean thought about when he thought about meeting Jeremy Knox was right before he was supposed to do a TV segment with Riko and Kevin. This had been back when Kevin was still a Raven, back when Jeremy hadn’t been captain, and back when Jean had thought he would be tied to Riko Moriyama forever. Jean was just another backliner, and Riko’s number three; Jeremy was coming forward as the Trojan’s star striker.

It had been an interesting meeting, to say the least.

Jean had been standing off to the side of the set with a small paper cup of water when he was approached by Jeremy. He hadn’t realized how short the Trojan was; he stood at least three inches shorter than Jean. More than that.

At first, he thought the striker had just come over to also partake of the refreshments - they were right by the water cooler, after all - but after a minute or two it became clear that Jeremy had other ideas. Jean stood, taciturn, sipping his water and refilling the cup when it was drained. The bottom was starting to get worryingly soft; it wasn’t a super high quality paper cup. 

He made the mistake of looking up to see if Jeremy was watching him; he was, and he smiled widely as soon as they made eye contact.

Jean had never seen anyone with teeth that straight, or with a smile so…  _ genuine.  _ Edgar Allen smiles were either fake, or they were never seen. Edgar Allen smiles were a very rare  _ commodity, _ and here was this guy, throwing his around like it was pocket change.

Jean had immediately harbored resentment towards him, for something so simple as being able to be  _ happy _ . It was a feeling that never really went away, even after Jean had been gone from Evermore for months and had settled in to California. It was a rough change that never got easier, and halfway through his first full semester at USC, he was still a wreck. He had possibly even gotten  _ worse. _

It was after a particularly strenuous practice, difficult only because Jean was used to doing things in a very different manner from the Trojans. A lot of them still didn’t trust him, and they didn’t play as strictly. He kept tripping up, trying to adjust to their speed and their style.Jean thought that he should have picked it up by now. At Evermore, he would have been expected to have. It was this thought that lingered in his mind long after everyone else had showered and changed out, and it was this thought that haunted him as he stood under the warm spray of water while it grew colder and colder.

He should have adjusted already. He should have matched their level of play and read their style, by now. He was already so much  _ better,  _ and there was no explanation for why he was doing so much  _ worse _ . If Riko were here, he’d be so mad. If Riko were here, Jean would be as good as dead and so would whoever was unlucky enough to be his partner. 

But Riko wasn’t there. Riko was  _ never  _ going to be there, ever again, and Jean should have felt happy, should have felt relieved, should have felt a lot of things other than the emptiness and the guilt that sat in the middle of his chest like a stone. He couldn’t bear the weight of it; it was too much. His mind went blank; by the time he blinked his way into stability, the water was freezing and his hand stung. Jean, numbed from the cold of the water, shut it off; he looked down at his hands and stared.

It took him a moment to process what he was seeing; faint purples and blues, spreading across his knuckles. The feeling was already starting to creep in -- pain, and the ache when he tried to straighten his fingers out.  _ Stupid _ , he thought. He fucked up his own hand, this time, with no Riko there to do it for him. He had to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

The noise echoed back to him, reverberating around him, closing him in. Jean couldn’t breathe. He stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around him to feel safe. He went through the motions of drying, pulling on clothes, and sat for a while, gazing at the floor. After another ten minutes of dissociating, he found the energy to stand and leave the bathroom area. He stopped just inside the main part of the locker room, surprised; Jeremy Knox was sitting quietly on the floor, his phone plugged into an outlet and his head leaning back against the bottom row of lockers.

Jeremy looked up at him, and he hid his hands as fast as he could, but Jean didn’t miss that flash of concern across his captain’s face. Jeremy stood, immediately, leaving his phone on the floor.

“What happened?” he demanded.

Even being so much shorter than Jean -- a full seven inches, he had discovered --, Jeremy managed to be threatening enough to convince the taller boy to bring his hands out; that, or it was the fear of someone who was in a more authoritative position than he was. Either way, he pulled his hands from behind his back and quietly presented them to his captain. Jeremy swore under his breath; a feat that always made Jean appreciate him a little more, under different circumstances. 

“What did you do?”

Jean kept his mouth firmly shut; talking, in the past, would have just gotten him in worse trouble. 

“Okay.” Jeremy shook his head. “Sit down, I’ll be right back.”

Jean waited a moment before sitting down on the bench, keeping an eye on Jeremy. He watched as the captain of the Trojans disappeared into the office. It seemed like hours and somehow also mere seconds between the time Jeremy left and the time he returned. When he did, though, his arms were full of things: salt; a small bowl; some flexible ice packs; aloe vera. Jean stared at him.

“What the fuck is all of that for?”

Jeremy smiled sheepishly. “I’m gonna be really honest here -- I did a quick search on what to do for bruised knuckles. So give me just a second, okay?”

That didn’t really answer any questions, but Jean watched silently as Jeremy set everything but the bowl down on the bench. The shorter boy left his visual range for a moment, and he heard water running; a moment later, Jeremy returned. He sat on the bench, legs on either side and far enough away to place the bowl in between the two of them. He started to pour a little bit of salt in there and, after watching it dissolve, added some more to be safe. 

“Okay,” Jeremy finally said, looking up at Jean. “Put your hands in this.”

Jean didn’t need to ask why; he was no stranger to the medicinal properties of warm salt water. Salt water relieved ache and helped with stiffness, and he knew these things from prior experience rather than from any academic knowledge. 

He let his hands soak for a few minutes before he spoke.

Voice quiet and low, he said, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Jeremy sounded genuinely confused.

“For fucking up my hands. It’s not… it’s one of the most important parts of player’s body, and I shouldn’t have…” Jean stopped, less out of a desire to stop speaking and more out of the knowledge that it was redundant. 

He looked up, and was surprised to see Jeremy’s face scrunched up in irritation, thick eyebrows furrowed.

“Jean, I don’t care about your hands. I mean,” he added, “I  _ do _ , but right now I only care about them in the sense that they’re hurting you. You’re hurting.”

Jean shook his head. 

“You’re telling me you don’t care that I could have ruined them and any chance of playing for weeks, possibly months?”

A frustrated sigh escaped the other boy’s mouth. His expression was serious; it was one that Jean had rarely seen in his time with the usually-smiling boy. As Jeremy spoke, he kept his eyes on Jean’s.

“You are not just an asset,” he said slowly. “You are  _ more _ than your usefulness on the court. You are a person, and you are someone I care about. Right now, I’m more concerned with making sure you’re okay  _ emotionally. _ ”

Jean turned his gaze down to the water, unable to keep eye contact. The water was cooling, but as the warmth ebbed, he felt that his pain did as well. 

He didn’t understand the concept of caring. In theory, yes; in theory, he knew that people were not just a measure of their skill, that  they were something other than how  _ useful _ they were. In practice, though, he couldn’t fathom it. The time he spent at Edgar Allen - all three years of it - had molded him into a person who was wary of anything labeled  _ unconditional. _

He pulled his hands out of the water.

“It’s cold, now,” he offered as half of an explanation. The truth was, he wanted Jeremy to quit this act as soon as possible. He wanted it over with. 

He couldn’t deal with it.

“Okay. Uh, let me just --” Jeremy reached for the aloe vera, stretching past Jean.

Jean stiffened, startled by the sudden movement; he cursed himself quietly for reacting that way. 

“What’s that for?” he asked, uncomfortable with the level of quiet in the situation.

Jeremy glanced up from the bottle.

“Oh, this? It’s basically for the same thing as the salt water, but you can’t be too careful, right?” He smiled good-naturedly. 

“I’m pretty sure it’ll take the same amount of time to heal without all this,” Jean said, frowning at the bottle.

“Hey. This is to make sure you aren’t suffering, okay? Now hold out your hands.”

There it was, again. The implication that Jean meant more to Jeremy than his skill as an Exy player. It bewildered him, and he let Jeremy see his hands without question. He wasn’t prepared for the cold shock of the aloe vera after the warmth of the water, and he reflexively winced.

“Sorry,” Jeremy apologized. “Cold?”

“Yeah. It’s fine.”

The bruises on his hands were already much darker than before, he noticed; he tried not to fidget as he let Jeremy rub the green gel across his knuckles, around his fingers. He tried his best to stay taciturn and still, but he could feel the anxiety in his chest. He pulled his hands back before Jeremy was finished. To his credit, Jeremy didn’t mention it; he just looked up at Jean, somber.

“Hey. Put those ice packs on your hands. Replace them when they’re not cold anymore.”

Jean processed what he said, but he felt that it meant something different. He felt that what Jeremy really meant was,  _ please take care of yourself. I don’t like seeing you hurt. _

He didn’t know what to make of that, so he just forced out a small, “Thank you.”

Jeremy must have known how much it meant to say that, because he smiled wide. 

“What are friends for?”


End file.
